Lately, I’ve been trying my hand at the jumble of tasks the game development world assigns to those with a pathological obsession for words and stories; quest and character design, script-writing, world-building, a touch of narrative design. Now, I’m relatively new at game writing, but I have been playing video games my whole life, and I’ve always enjoyed video games as a storytelling medium. Getting the chance to write for them has got me thinking about what makes gaming such a special way to tell a story.
Game writing has its perks. First off, it provides its own set of subtle storytelling tools. An item’s “flavor text,” for instance— the bits of lore scribbled under an item’s description— can tell as much about the world as the flags hanging in the throne room of a fantasy novel. Well written games can even use a character’s skillset or role to point the player towards future revelations. A monk who sells the player weapons raises as many questions as a priest who knows too much about using guns in a film. Making sure their role is really integrated with the world is hard, but the payoff is huge.
There’s also the whole “non-linear storytelling” thing, which deserves a trio of college courses and a library full of books. Non-linear storytelling boils down to giving players control, or the illusion of it. Yes, illusion. Even stories famed for their labyrinth of forking paths are often managed by “bottlenecks,” important points in the story that nudge the player back onto the rails so the dev-team has to write three endings instead of thirty, and the animators have thirty scenes to tackle instead of three hundred. But, so long as the writing is good and the strings that guide the story aren’t dangling right in front of your face, the illusory nature of your choices is irrelevant; you still feel like you’ve changed the story, and your experience will be unique.
Taking this a step further, the very act of playing the game serves the same purpose. The major points in the story aren’t always going to change (for most games, they never do), but the experience of getting to those points is unique for every person. Every player experiences the story differently, whether it’s because of their choice in playstyle (do you want to smash every enemy or just sprint on through?), or because it took them two days to beat the final boss. This is a huge part of what makes gaming fun; we feel like we’re playing a part in the unfolding of the story, and its challenges become our own.
According to “Story,” by Robert McKee, novels, theater, and film each specialize in portraying certain “levels” of conflict. Novels rule interiority and inner conflicts, due to their ability to get inside the heads of various characters. Thanks to its dialogue, human actors, and small-scale sets, theater is the realm of inter-personal conflict. As for film, McKee’s medium of choice, the camera’s objectivity and film’s ability to jump from place to place allow writers to examine large scale conflicts with the gravitas they deserve.
Gaming puts you into the conflict. In other words, gaming’s specialty is immersion. It throws you into the middle of a world and allows you to choose where the story goes. And, when you have a feeling of “choice—” illusory or not—you automatically feel a like part of the story. It doesn’t matter that the sprite on screen is named “Link,” looks nothing like you and lives in a world totally alien to your own. With the press of a button, you become a part of his world and have a personal stake in the story.
Better yet, immersion is cyclical. Finding details and easter eggs on your own helps bring you further into the story, which increases your investment, which makes your choices feel more impactful, and so on until the developer does something to boot you out of the experience. Some games, like Dark Souls, take the finding of details very seriously. Some areas are locked until you position the camera right, in the right area. Made me feel a little like the director in a dark fantasy film, and sure as hell connected me to the story.
This isn’t universal, of course. Like every other format, gaming has a lot of entries designed solely to entertain and give you an opportunity to turn off your brain and dick around for a little while. But, immersion is as important here as it is in serious storytelling. It’s probably why the big “time-sink” games give you an abundance of choice, like Minecraft or GTA. Not to talk out my ass, here, but that’s especially useful when the rest of your life feels stuck on rails.
Unqualified psychoanalysis aside, working with immersion and choice in mind is a good exercise for writers. Many writers have trouble getting their readers “into” the story. The reasons are myriad; the stakes aren’t high enough, the character feels flat, the world isn’t fleshed out, something feels “off.” The reader is always aware that they’re reading a story. Writing for video games can help you think a little more about how to get readers to lose themselves in your story. You also have to remember that you’re writing for a video-game, which means you’ll have to think about both gameplay and the resources of the rest of your team. These kinds of restrictions breed creativity.
Plus, writing non-linear stories is a good for any writer. Sure, we always run through the myriad possibilities in any story we write, but being forced to fully develop those forks in the road helps you to more deeply connect with your characters, their world, and their motivation. I’d recommend giving Twine a try. It’s free, you could probably run it on an actual potato, and it’s simpler than Microsoft Word.
In the same way that script and play-writing can help you practice dialogue, writing for games can help you focus on building a nicely three-dimensional world, which is important no matter your genre. Besides, it’s fun to write in a new format. I think the little bit of rewiring necessary to try out a new format can do a lot of good for your writing. I’m looking forward to doing more of it, myself.
